Survey methods in migration research: design, implementation, and analysis
Please note: This page refers to a course that has already taken place.
Place:
PRIO, Hausmanns gate 3, Oslo
Organizer:
Jørgen Jensehaugen: jorjen@prio.org
Credits:
Equals 5 ECTS (with approved essay) according to standards of University of Oslo
Contact:
Jørgen Jensehaugen: jorjen@prio.org
Lecturers:
The course will be led by Jørgen Carling, Research Professor at the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO) and co-director of the PRIO Migration Centre. His research covers global migration, immobility and transnationalism, seeking to explain how migration arises, and how it affects societies, families and individuals. He holds a PhD in Human Geography and combines ethnographic and statistical methods, often in mixed-methods research designs. He currently leads MIGNEX, a large 10-country project on migration and development, as well as the ERC-funded project Future Migration as Present Fact (FUMI).
Jessica Hagen-Zanker is a Senior Research Fellow at ODI, an independent, global development think tank based in London. Her research focuses on migration and development, migration decision-making, the links between migration and social protection, the humanitarian-development nexus as well as the analysis of social protection programmes and policies. She leads the survey component of the MIGNEX project. Jessica holds a PhD in Public Policy from Maastricht University and is affiliated with PRIO as a PRIO Global Fellow.
This PhD-level course provides broad training on survey research methods, with an emphasis on applications in migration research. It spans all stages of survey research, from research design to communication of results, reflecting the view that each step is potentially decisive for overall quality and impact.
The course is designed to suit participants with diverse levels of previous knowledge and different needs in their own research. Under each topic, participants will be sensitized to the considerations, dilemmas, and options that will enable them to pursue relevant topics in greater depth on their own. The course draws upon the two lecturers' research experience over the past two decades.
The course was first taught in 2022 and received excellent student evaluations. The course is part of the NORHED II project, Partnership for Peace: Better Higher Education for Resilient Societies.
All participants will receive a diploma from the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO) proving that they have taken the course. In order to have the course recommended as equivalent to a 5 ECTS course, participants must submit a paper of 4000 words, which is evaluated as passed.
Course Description:
The course spans all the stages of survey research, with an emphasis on studies of migration, displacement, ethnicity and transnationalism. It is designed to be relevant to PhD candidates who carry out their own surveys as well as to those that work with pre-existing survey data. In addition, the course provides a foundation for planning survey-based migration research after the PhD. The sessions address research design, approaches to sampling, development of survey instruments, technical solutions, management of data collection, quality assurance, data cleaning, analysis, and communication of results. The course also includes a session on combining survey data with ethnographic data in mixed-methods projects. The lecturers draw upon experience from survey research at different scales, from one-person projects to large-scale international research. Under each topic in the course, a key objective is to sensitize participants to the considerations, dilemmas, and options that will enable them to pursue relevant topics in-depth on their own. The course will use examples of data collection with SurveyCTO and analysis with Stata, but familiarity with specific software is not a prerequisite. Participants may benefit from also pursuing courses on the specific statistical analyses they plan to use, either before or after completing this course.
Click here to download a full course description pdf including details on sessions, schedule and readings.